Public health chiefs are closing in on the missing patient infected with the Brazil Covid-19 mutation - and have narrowed their hunt to 379 households, Matt Hancock has revealed.
The Heath Secretary said the search for the individual had made dramatic progress since an alert was issued.
Updating MPs on the six cases of the variant of concern that was first identified in Brazil, now identified in the UK, Mr Hancocksaid: "We know that five of these six people quarantined at home as they were legally required to do."
He added: "We're stepping up our testing and sequencing in south Gloucestershire as a precaution. We have no information to suggest the variant has spread further.
"Unfortunately one of these six cases completed a test but didn't successfully complete the contact details. Incidents like this are rare and only occur in around 0.1% of tests."
Public Health England has identified six UK cases of the P1 strain first detected in the Brazilian city.
Two in England are from the same South Gloucestershire household after one person returned from Brazil on February 10 – just days before the Government's hotel quarantine rule came into force.
Three cases involve Scottish residents who flew to Aberdeen from Brazil via Paris and London, who all tested positive while self-isolating.
But it is unclear if the missing patient with the Manaus variant slipped into the UK before the hotel quarantine system came into force last month, or whether they contracted the virus here.
"Our current vaccines have not yet been studied against this variant and we're working to understand what impact it might have, but we do know that this variant has caused significant challenges in Brazil, so we're doing all we can to stop the spread of this new variant in the UK, to analyse its effects and to develop an updated vaccine that works on all these variants of concern and protect the progress that we've made as a nation."
Mr Hancock also said one in four people in England are now estimated to have antibodies against Covid-19.
He told the Commons: "This morning, the Office for National Statistics published new data on the levels of protection people have.
"They show that up to February 11, one in four people are estimated to have antibodies against coronavirus in England, up from one in five.
"The levels are highest in the over-80s, the first group to be vaccinated, showing again the protection from the vaccine across the country."
